Mr. President,
under normal circumstances I would start with congratulating my friend and colleague in the Swedish parliament, Göran Lindblad, for an excellent report. Unfortunately I cannot do that. Instead I have to, on behalf of an unanimous political group, ask the Assembly to reject this report.
Before I continue, I will make one thing perfectly clear: there have been massive violations of human rights in states ruled by parties and regimes, claiming to be Communist - and this should be condemned, as should the massive violations of human rights in the name of democracy, freedom, Christianity or civilisation.
The problem with this report, which makes it unacceptable, is that it is using the atrocities of the past as a tool to attack, marginalise and even pave the way for criminalisation of an ideology and political current, the ideals of which are the very opposite of these crimes.
This report does not make the necessary distinction between violations of human rights, committed by regimes labelled as "communist", and communism as a political movement aiming at a society where the "freedom of each and everyone is the precondition for the freedom of all", to quote the Communist Manifesto of 1848. And when you read the explanatory memorandum, it is clear that this confusion is intentional.
Communism can mean many things, some of them contradictory to each other. But anti-communism is also a strange animal. It claims to be the advocate of freedom and democracy, but looking at history makes the picture quite different.
Under the banner of anti-communism, men and women dreaming of and fighting for freedom, have been jailed and tortured.
Under the banner of anti-communism, men and women, struggling for democracy, have been deprived of their democratic rights.
The truth is, that the target of anti-communism, has never been dictatorship or violations of human rights, the target of anti-communism has always been, and still is, the left, the labour movement, anyone questioning capitalism and imperialism. The anti-communists of the 20th century opposed the so called "dictatorship of the proletariat" in the Soviet Union - not because it was a dictatorship, but because it was of the proletariat. In this both anti-communists and communists were wrong, it wasn't proletarian at all, but for decades the Soviet Union seemed to materialise the eternal nightmare of the ruling classes, the fear that the workers should seize power.
In the report it is said that "some communist parties have made contributions to achieving democracy". How very generous!
Who died in Spain, defending the democratic republic in the 30's?
Who organized the resistance against Nazi occupation?
Who fought post-war fascism in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Rhodesia and South Africa, regimes supported by the United States in the name of anti-communism?
Who is today in the "war on terror" defending liberal principles when attacked by liberals?
Göran Lindblad knows the answer.
I represent the group of the Unified European Left. "Unified" doesn't mean unanimous. We come from different political traditions and we use different political labels: left, socialist, left-socialist, green, communist. We have different opinions on many issues, including 20th century European history. But all 36 members, without exception, communists as non-communists, defend the values of the Council of Europe.
Colleagues, when I ask you to reject this report, I do not ask you to defend communism in any meaning of the word, I do not ask you to defend communists.
 
But I do ask you to defend the values of this assembly and vote "no" to this report.